Reviewed by Judy Richter
Richard Elliott, artistic director of Willows
Theatre Company,
is one brave man. His company is staging and he is directing Robert
Schenkkan's
"The Kentucky Cycle." Winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for drama, this epic play
covers so much territory that its nine acts have to be presented in two parts
to be seen on consecutive nights or, in the case of this review, in an
afternoon and evening. Spanning two centuries of American history, it also
requires 22 actors who create nearly 100 characters.
The
play is set in Eastern Kentucky starting in 1775 when an Irish immigrant,
Michael Rowen (Tim Hendrixson, whose accent can be hard to understand), kills a man
who has been selling guns to the Cherokee Indians in exchange for pelts. Rowen
in turn cuts his own deal with the Indians, seizes their land and builds a
cabin to which he later brings an unwilling Cherokee woman, Morning Star (Letitia
Trattner), to be
his wife. The saga continues, intertwining the lives of Michael's descendants
with the Talbert and Biggs families. The neighboring Talberts are often at odds
with the Rowens. The Biggs family starts with a Rowen family slave, Sallie (Gloria
Belle), whose
son, Jessie (Adrian N. Roberts) was sired by Michael Rowen. Moreover, Michael's son,
Patrick (Brady Woolery as the young Patrick, Andrew Merit as the adult), married Rebecca
Talbert (Tenaya Hurst) and had two sons of his own, mingling the Talbert and Rowen lines.
A genealogy in the program helps to sort everyone out, but the narrative is so
clear that there's no confusion. Although most members of the Rowen and Talbert
families have a redeeming quality or two, few of them come across as wholly
admirable. Murder and cheating are constant themes, as are illness and natural
death. Nor is life kind to most of the characters, especially the Rowens. It's
as if the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children and the children
after them.
The
play continues through the Civil War and into the late 19th century, when a
glib story-teller, J.T. Wells (Ryan Tasker), convinces the illiterate Jed Rowen (Cassidy
Brown) to sign
over the mineral rights to his more than 300 acres of land to the Blue Star
Mining Co., a Rockefeller venture. Jed naively believes he has gotten the best
of the deal, but what he did was give Blue Star the right to mine millions of
dollars worth of coal on his land. By 1920, the mine is going full bore,
employing most local people but paying little heed to safety measures and
devastating the environment. This section, "Fire in the Hole," is one of the longest in
the entire play as the miners, led by the grieving Mary Anne Rowen Jackson (Diana
Boos) and union
organizer Abe Steinman (Michael Moerman), take the first steps toward forming a union and
joining up with the United Mine Workers of America. The union's battles with
the company and the ultimate closure of the mine are the focus of the final two
parts, taking place in 1954 and 1975.
Even
though only three actors -- Brown, Hendrixson and Roberts -- are members of
Actors Equity, the acting is first-rate. Nearly everyone creates several
characters, but they're all clearly differentiated. The designs in the
company's intimate theater also work well with sets by Peter Crompton, lighting by Robert Anderson, costumes by Melissa Torchia and sound by Sean McStravick, although the mine whistle heard
between scenes of "Fire in the Hole" is intrusive. The convincing
fight choreography is by Tom Flynn.
Because
this monumental play is so demanding of resources and time, few companies dare
to take it on. Therefore, the Bay Area owes a big thank you to Elliott and his
company for accepting the challenge and meeting it so well.
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